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Tag: Lifestyle

  • Monarch butterflies return to Mexico on annual migration

    Monarch butterflies return to Mexico on annual migration

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    MEXICO CITY — The first monarch butterflies have appeared in the mountaintop forests of central Mexico where they spend the winter, Mexico’s Environment Department said Saturday.

    The first butterflies have been seen exploring the mountaintop reserves in th states of Mexico and Michoacan, apparently trying to decide where to settle this year.

    The monarchs have shown up a few days late this year. Normally they arrive for the Day of the Dead observances on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2. Mountainside communities long associated the orange-and-black butterflies with the returning souls of the dead.

    The department said the butterflies were seen around their three largest traditional wintering grounds — Sierra Chincua, El Rosario and Cerro Pelón in Michoacan state.

    The main group of butterflies is expected to arrive in the coming weeks, depending on weather conditions, the department said in a statement.

    It is too early to say how big this year’s annual migration from the United States and Canada will be. Those counts are usually made in January, when the butterflies have settled into clumps on the boughs of fir and pine trees.

    The annual butterfly count doesn’t calculate the individual number of butterflies, but rather the number of acres they cover when they clump together.

    Last year, 35% more monarch butterflies arrived compared to the previous season. The rise may reflect the butterflies’ ability to adapt to more extreme bouts of heat or drought by varying the date when they leave Mexico.

    Each year, generally in March, the monarchs migrate back to the United States and Canada.

    Drought, severe weather and loss of habitat north of the border — especially of the milkweed where the monarchs lay their eggs — as well as pesticide and herbicide use and climate change all pose threats to the species’ migration. Illegal logging and loss of tree cover due to disease, drought and storms plague the reserves in Mexico.

    This year, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the migrating monarch butterfly to its “red list” of threatened species and categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from extinct.

    The group estimates the population of monarch butterflies in North America has declined between 22% and 72% over 10 years, depending on the measurement method.

    The monarchs’ migration is the longest of any insect species known to science.

    After wintering in Mexico, the butterflies fly north, breeding multiple generations along the way for thousands of miles. The offspring that reach southern Canada begin the trip back to Mexico at the end of summer.

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  • Record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot fans ticket sales

    Record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot fans ticket sales

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    MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Powerball jackpot has reached a record estimated high of $1.6 billion, leading longtime players and first-timers alike to flock to buy tickets ahead of Saturday night’s drawing.

    At Woodman’s Markets in Madison, Wisconsin, sisters Christy Bemis and Cherrie Spencer were among the dozens of weekend shoppers who paid for their groceries and loaded up carts before joining the line at the lottery counter to purchase their shot at the prize.

    They said they almost never buy lottery tickets, but they were lured in by the size of the jackpot.

    “My $2 has just as good a chance of winning as anyone else’s $2,” said Spencer.

    The counter was one of the busiest areas of the supermarket — so busy that employees set up stanchions to guide the queue. Like most of the players in line, Jim Olson, 78, was buying Quick Picks, randomly generated Powerball numbers, but he doesn’t always.

    Olson said he has typically bought a Powerball ticket once every drawing “virtually since they started.” When he picks his own numbers, there’s no rhyme or reason to how he does it: “They just come to you. I can’t explain it.”

    Olson’s biggest win to date? $300 about 20 years ago, he said.

    It speaks to the extremely long odds of winning the jackpot — about 1 in 292.2 million.

    Still, the chance of pocketing $782.4 million (the value of the cash option before taxes) has been enough to bring people flooding across state lines for a chance to play. Winners of massive jackpots almost always opt for cash, but some financial experts say the annuity option, which is paid out over a 30-year term, might be a safer bet.

    Many players do whatever they can to try to tip the odds in their favor. Unlike the weekend shoppers in Madison, not everyone buys their tickets at the most convenient location.

    In Los Angeles, a liquor store known for producing several winning tickets over the years gives superstitious players hope that they could be the next to strike it rich.

    Hector Solis, 35, has been coming to Bluebird Liquor to buy lottery tickets ever since he was a kid tagging along with his parents. ““Bluebird’s, you know, pretty much a hotspot that we know of,” he said.

    On Saturday, Solis purchased $140 worth of tickets on behalf of a group of 27 coworkers. He said he uses specific numbers, like the birthdays of family members he considers to have particularly good luck.

    Al Adams was also at the liquor store to buy his tickets. An experienced drug and alcohol counselor, Adams said he believes in giving back. If he were to win, he said he would give some of the money to his favorite charity for homeless and incarcerated people. “I’d use the rest to disappear somewhere,” Adams said. He also cautioned players to “play responsibly.”

    Kianah Bowman had a different message for lottery players. The 24-year-old organizer used Bluebird Liquor’s long lines as a platform for petitioning against high oil and gas prices — an issue she hopes to see on a ballot referendum in California. She was outside the liquor store for several days, gathering signatures from hundreds of players.

    Bowman also said she plans to buy a few tickets for herself.

    Back in Madison, Djuan Davis was manning the lottery counter at Pick ’n Save on Saturday morning, taking cash and handing out tickets to more weekend shoppers. “Typically there’s a lot of sales on Saturdays,” he said.

    With a record-breaking jackpot, business has picked up. Davis said he’s also seen a recent increase in players purchasing tickets online.

    As customers arrived at the counter, Davis would ask how he could help them. Almost every one answered the same: Powerball tickets.

    “Every time, it’s always that one,” Davis said.

    It was Arpad Jakab’s first time buying Powerball tickets. As Davis sold him four Quick Pick tickets, Jakab, a retired utility worker, said he probably wouldn’t buy them again unless there was another record jackpot.

    “It was just really high,” said Jakab. “Might as well join the insanity.”

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  • Private school vouchers open faith options for kids of color

    Private school vouchers open faith options for kids of color

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    MILWAUKEE (AP) — On break in the hallway between St. Marcus Lutheran Church and its attached school, eighth grader Annii Kinepoway had no hesitation in explaining what she’s learned to love best here — the good Lord and good grades.

    “I like knowing there’s somebody you can ask for help if you need it. Somebody is there and looking over you,” she said of her newly found faith, while proudly wearing the tie indicating her academic honors.

    Annii’s mother could only afford this educational opportunity because of school choice programs, which 94% of St. Marcus’ 1,160 students in Milwaukee also use.

    “It has changed our lives for the better,” said Wishkub Kinepoway, a Native American and African American single mom. “She says, ‘I really love St. Marcus because I don’t have to pretend I’m not smart.’”

    School choice is one of many education issues that have become a partisan battleground, bringing parents to the polls this fall. One core question is how widely, if at all, taxpayer money should pay for private school tuition, instead of only financing public schools. Critics say such programs weaken public schools, whose costs remain high even if students transfer, taking some state funding with them.

    The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated tensions. Public schools often were closed longer than private ones, and extended online learning has been linked to major learning losses.

    But many low-income parents in neighborhoods like Milwaukee’s predominantly African American north side or Latino south side say voucher programs — introduced here three decades ago — are the only way their children can attend faith-based institutions. They say those schools teach structure and values in ways public ones are often too overwhelmed to do.

    “It’s a huge difference because it’s a support in faith and in values,” said Lorena Ramirez, whose four children attend St. Anthony, walking distance from home on Milwaukee’s south side. “I was looking for a school that would help me.”

    St. Anthony is one of the country’s largest Catholic schools – 1,500 students on five campuses who are 99% Latino and almost entirely covered by public funding, said its president, Rosana Mateo. It was founded by German immigrants 150 years ago, just like St. Marcus.

    Until the 1960s, urban parochial schools could count on financing from flourishing parishes and cheap payroll costs, since nuns often taught for free. Without those supports, schools started charging substantial tuition, now up to $8,000-$9,000 per academic year — unaffordable for most working-class families.

    “Our neediest students should have the opportunity to go to private schools,” said Mateo, a former deputy superintendent in Milwaukee’s public schools.

    The expansion and politicization of voucher programs, however, is “no longer targeting really poor kids” but rather “disproportionately helping middle-class, white students,” said Gary Orfield, an education professor and co-director of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research found students of color have lower test scores and graduation rates when attending low-quality private schools, because most vouchers programs don’t allow for transportation to higher-performing ones.

    While urban, faith-based schools don’t necessarily outperform all public ones on test scores, their students enjoy better civic outcomes, from college graduation rates to lower drug use, said Patrick Wolf, a professor of education at the University of Arkansas.

    “They contribute more to the community than just educating the kids,” Wolf said.

    In Omaha, Nebraska — a state Wolf called a “school choice desert” — three Catholic schools in danger of closing formed a foundation.

    They’ve raised millions of dollars to serve nearly 600 children, 93% of them students of color and all in need of financial assistance, said the Rev. Dave Korth, foundation president and pastor at one of the related parishes.

    Reliable public funds would keep the schools sustainable for parents who choose them “not because of political hot-button things. They simply want their kids in faith-based environments because they believe they’ll be better citizens,” Korth said.

    Arizona is at the other end of the school choice spectrum — against strong opposition, its governor signed one of the country’s broadest voucher system expansions, allowing every parent to use public funds for private tuition or other education costs.

    One such parent is Jill Voss, who’s using tuition assistance to send her three children to Phoenix Christian School PreK-8, where she’s the athletic director and physical education teacher. She’s an alumna, as are her parents and grandparents, who were among the first students when the school opened in 1959.

    “A lot of the reason we chose Phoenix Christian was because of our family and just knowing my kids were getting a good Christian foundation to their schooling,” Voss said. “Church and having a church family is important to us.”

    Diamond Figueroa, a sixth grader who attends Phoenix Christian thanks to financial assistance just like 98% of her schoolmates, said she wasn’t always comfortable in public school, even though more students there were also Hispanic.

    “Everyone here is so much nicer and welcoming,” she said. “I am not afraid to ask questions.”

    It is broad spiritual values rather than specific denominational practices that parents and educators find helpful in preventing the fights and other aggressive behavior that have recently plagued schools.

    “Say there’s a dispute between two kids ready to go to blows,” said Ernie DiDomizio, the principal of St. Catherine School, citing an example from that morning when students were fighting over sneakers. The Catholic school in Milwaukee has 130 students, most African American and all enrolled through choice programs. “At that moment, we prayed for grace and acceptance. In public schools, you can’t do that.”

    For recent immigrants, especially from Latin America, where Catholic traditions are more visible in public life, faith-based schools help maintain cultural ties.

    Learning Mexican folkloric dances at St. Anthony, for instance, helps her children feel more at home with their family’s culture, Ramirez said. The public schools where she first sent her oldest “don’t teach much about cultures. Here there are all kinds, and nobody is discriminated.”

    One of her daughter’s fifth-grade classmates, Evelyn Ramirez, likes St. Anthony’s lesson that God “made the world with good people and not just mean people.”

    Catholic schools historically played a major role in integrating Hispanic immigrants in American culture, especially when public schools were segregated, said Felipe Hinojosa, a professor of Latino politics and religion at Texas A&M University.

    Continued racial divisions of many urban neighborhoods affect school performance. St. Marcus is the only school — out of 14 in the area that are 80% low-income and 80% African American — where more than 20% of students are proficient in reading, said St. Marcus superintendent Henry Tyson.

    “Parents send their kids to St. Marcus because they’re frustrated with schools where their kids are failing,” Tyson said. “We want kids to know they’re redeemed children of God. It’s transformative for their sense of self.”

    When she enrolled at St. Marcus last year, Annii was unfamiliar with the prayers and school uniform.

    “On the first day … I stood there looking around, feeling awkward and out of place. … Now I can do my own thing in my relationship with God,” she said, before rushing back to math class.

    ___

    Mumphrey reported from Phoenix.

    ___

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • When destitute small towns mean dangerous tap water

    When destitute small towns mean dangerous tap water

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    KEYSTONE, W.Va. (AP) — Donna Dickerson’s heart would sink every time she’d wake up, turn on the faucet in her mobile home and hear the pipes gurgling.

    Sometimes it would happen on a day when her mother, who is 86 and has dementia, had a doctor’s appointment and needed to bathe. Sometimes it would be on Thanksgiving or Christmas when family had come to stay.

    “It was sickening, literally a headache and it disrupted everything,” she said. “Out of nowhere, the water would be gone, and we’d have no idea when it’d be back.”

    It is hard enough to care for someone with dementia. Caring for someone with dementia with no safe water takes the stress to another level.

    While failures of big city water systems attract the attention, it’s small communities like Keystone, West Virginia, that more often are left unprotected by destitute and unmaintained water providers. Small water providers rack up roughly twice as many health violations as big cities on average, an analysis of thousands of records over the last three years by The Associated Press shows. In that time, small water providers violated the Safe Drinking Water Act’s health standards nearly 9,000 times. They were also frequently the very worst performers. Federal law allows authorities to force changes on water utilities, but they rarely do, even for the worst offenders.

    “We’re talking about things that we’ve known in drinking water for a century, that we have an expectation in this country that everybody should be afforded,” said Chad Seidel, president of a water consulting company.

    The worst water providers can have such severe problems that residents are told they can’t drink the water. For 10 solid years Dickerson and 175 neighbors in the tiny, majority Black community of Keystone had to boil all their water. That length of time is nearly unheard of — such warnings usually last only for days. The requirement added gas and electricity costs on top of the water bill. In addition, residents would lose water outright for days or even weeks at a time with no warning.

    A coal company had built the original system, but since left, leaving no one in charge.

    When Dickerson’s water went out, she would drive the dying county’s winding mountain roads to the food bank, or buy water at Dollar General – one of the area’s only stores. She’d haul containers back home and heat up pots on the stove to fill the tub, so her mother could bathe. She stored water in containers in her mobile home’s two bathrooms to flush toilets. Dishes and laundry would pile up.

    There was the cost of gas, the cost of 5 gallon water jugs, the cost of washing clothes at the laundromat. There was also an emotional cost.

    “It drains you,” she said. “You have to learn how to survive.”

    When President Gerald Ford signed the landmark Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974, he said “nothing is more essential to the life of every single American,” than clean water to drink, also mentioning clean air and pure food. The law protected Americans against 22 contaminants, including arsenic. Nearly half a century later, evolving science has broadened the coverage to more than 90 substances, and strengthened standards along the way.

    The miracle is that most water systems keep up – 94% comply with health standards.

    But Dickerson lives in one of the places that didn’t, the AP found, that struggles and fails repeatedly.

    After years of problems, Keystone finally got hooked up to a new water system last December, McDowell Public Service District, which focuses on upgrading systems in coal communities. The deteriorating water mains were replaced, and a nonproft called DigDeep helped pay to connect homes to the new infrastructure.

    When a water utility doesn’t treat water properly or has high levels of a contaminant, states are supposed to enforce the law. They usually give communities time to fix problems, and often they do. But if there is intransigence or delay, the state can escalate and impose fines. In many towns, that doesn’t go well.

    “Giving them a penalty is not going to get you anywhere. It’s just going to make the situation worse in most cases,” said Heather Himmelberger, director of the Southwest Environmental Finance Center at the University of New Mexico. The towns can’t afford the work.

    Some 3% of all systems the AP analyzed landed on the EPA’s enforcement priority list last year. Even worse are the 450 utilities that stayed on the list for at least five of the last 10 years. Four million Americans rely on these systems.

    Regulators rarely step in to force change.

    “Mostly what regulators have is moral appeal and they’ll wag their finger,” said Manny Teodoro, a professor at the University of Wisconsin who focuses on public policy and water.

    The EPA says the vast majority of systems do provide safe water and for those that struggle, the agency has increased technical assistance, inspections and enforcement. Those efforts have decreased the number of systems consistently committing health violations, according to Carol King, an attorney in the EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.

    Teodoro said originally water systems sprouted up when communities did, giving rise to a fragmented drinking water sector dominated by small providers. School districts in America formed the same way, but went through a period of consolidation. That’s happened far less with community water systems.

    The top concern of the sector is funding for infrastructure, according to a survey.

    Josiah Cox has a special view of which towns end up in the worst trouble. He spent years working on water issues and noticed many small utility owners failed to save money for maintenance or struggled when experienced staff members left.

    So he started a business, Central States Water Resources, buying up problem utilities, doing upgrades and billing customers for the costs over time.

    Terre Du Lac, Missouri was one. It’s a private, 5,200-acre community of roughly 1,200 homes nestled around 16 lakes. It advertises a relaxed atmosphere an hour south of St. Louis where people come to golf or water ski.

    But rust coated the water tower. The community drinking water well was pulling up naturally-occurring radioactive material that can cause cancer.

    He has seen a lot: bird feces in drinking water and one place that treated its water with chlorine tablets meant for swimming pools.

    “You start what we call the death spiral of these utilities” where they don’t have the resources to pay for what regulators are demanding, Cox said.

    Michael Tilley, who was slammed by regulators for how he operated the Terre Du Lac system before Cox took over, spent most of his life in the community and knows many residents. He said he felt a responsibility to serve them well, but repeatedly faced hurdles finding grant money.

    “I think if I had any claim to fame it was just keeping the rates low and trying to operate this thing on a shoestring,” he said. “I look back a lot of times and that was my problem.”

    Recruitment of professionals to run small water system is also a major issue. The largely white, male workforce is aging, according to surveys.

    Earlier in his career, Tim Wilson, a water project manager, spent time running the treatment plant in Wahpeton, Iowa, a community of just over 400 that expands when vacationers rush in during the summertime.

    Small, rural communities have a “ridiculously hard” time recruiting certified operators, he said. Then once they trained, they can be lured away by better pay and benefits elsewhere.

    The job demands can also be overwhelming. In Wahpeton, Wilson was the lone employee responsible for the treatment plant. He doubled as a snow plow driver and zoning expert at local government meetings. His crowning achievement, he says, was convincing officials to hire another person to help. It took six years.

    Nearly 1,000 miles south in Ferriday, Louisiana, staffing is one problem, but the water has failed people in every major way.

    You know your water is in trouble when it’s being distributed by the National Guard. That’s where residents of Ferriday took their bottles and buckets for four months back in 1999.

    “I haven’t drunk the water since,” said Jameel Green, 42, who has lived in town most of his life. He now makes sure his two girls, ages 16 and 8, don’t drink Ferriday water either, even if it costs $60 a month.

    He held up a garden hose caked with a white film from the water.

    It wasn’t always like this. In the 1950s and 1960s, Ferriday had a vibrant music scene – Jerry Lee Lewis was a local and acts like B.B. King stopped by. Some 5,200 people called Ferriday home. There are about 40% fewer people now, and Ferriday is a mainly Black community. The Delta Music Museum that celebrates the town’s place in music history is surrounded by mostly empty shops.

    In 2016, the water situation was supposed to change. The U.S. Department of Agriculture helped fund a new treatment plant that went into operation.

    But when the company that built the plant walked away after completion, the people operating it were left with little training on how to run it. Staff have struggled to find the right mix of chemicals, according to the Rev. James Smith Sr., who was brought in to help with the issue.

    “That’s the big problem. Everybody is still doing trial and error,” Smith said.

    Ferriday’s water problems represented “a system in total breakdown,” according to Sri Vedachalam, director of water equity and climate resilience at Environmental Consulting & Technology Inc, who reviewed public files.

    Water disinfection in Ferriday is leaving behind levels of carcinogens that are too high. For failing to fix its problems, the state issued Ferriday a $455,265 fine in November 2021.

    Smith said the water is now significantly improved. It’s tested regularly and plant operators are working on new treatment methods.

    But Ferriday never responded to the fine and the Louisiana health department is threatening to ask a judge to impose a timeline for improvements and force payment.

    Without a lot more money and more aggressive intervention in the worst places, experts say many Americans will continue to endure an expensive search for drinkable water, or else they’ll drink water that is potentially unsafe.

    “In my view, this is a desperate problem,” Teodoro said.

    ___

    Phillis reported from Ferriday, Louisiana, and St. Louis. Fassett reported from Seattle.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • California tenants rise up, demand rent caps from city halls

    California tenants rise up, demand rent caps from city halls

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    ANTIOCH, Calif. (AP) — Kim Carlson’s apartment has flooded with human feces multiple times, the plumbing never fixed in the low-income housing complex she calls home in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Antioch.

    Her property manager is verbally abusive and calls her 9-year-old grandson, who has autism, a slur word, she said. Her heater was busted for a month this winter and the dishwasher has mold growing under it. But the final straw came in May: a $500 rent increase, bringing the rent on the two-bedroom to $1,854 a month.

    Carlson and other tenants hit with similarly high increases converged on Antioch’s City Hall for marathon hearings, pleading for protection. In September, the City Council on a 3-2 vote approved a 3% cap on annual increases.

    Carlson, who is disabled and under treatment for lymphoma cancer, starts to weep imagining what her life could be like.

    “Just normality, just freedom, just being able to walk outside and breathe and not have to walk outside and wonder what is going to happen next,” said Carlson, 54, who lives with her daughter and two grandsons at the Delta Pines apartment complex. “You know, for the kids to feel safe. My babies don’t feel safe.”

    Despite a landmark renter protection law approved by California legislators in 2019, tenants across the country’s most populous state are taking to ballot boxes and city councils to demand even more safeguards. They want to crack down on tenant harassment, shoddy living conditions and unresponsive landlords that are usually faceless corporations.

    Elected officials, for their part, appear more willing than in years past to regulate what is a private contract between landlord and tenant. In addition to Antioch, city councils in Bell Gardens, Pomona, Oxnard and Oakland all lowered maximum rent increases this year as inflation hit a 40-year high. Other city councils put the issue on the Nov. 8 ballot.

    Leah Simon-Weisberg, legal director for the advocacy group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, says local officials can no longer pretend supply and demand works when so many families are facing homelessness. In June, 1.3 million California households reported being behind on rent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    The situation in working-class Antioch — where more than half the population is Black or Latino — illustrates how tenuous even a win for tenants can be.

    The two council members who voted in favor of rent stabilization are up for re-election Tuesday, with one of them, Tamisha Torres-Walker, facing a former council member she narrowly beat two years ago. The local newspaper endorsed Joy Motts and called Torres-Walker, who was homeless as a young adult, polarizing.

    Mayor Lamar Thorpe, who provided the third vote, faces sexual harassment allegations by two women, which he denies. They are part of a progressive Black majority.

    If either member loses her seat, the rent ordinance could be repealed.

    The two council members who voted no are both in the real estate industry, and not up for re-election.

    A once largely white suburb, Antioch has become more politically liberal as Black, Latino and low-income residents forced out of San Francisco and Oakland moved in. Advocates tried for years to mobilize tenants, but it took the shockingly high rent-hike notices and the expiration of a statewide eviction moratorium in June to get movement.

    Outraged tenants jammed into council chambers describing refrigerators pieced from spare parts and washing machines that reeked of rotten eggs. They spoke of skipping meals, working multiple jobs and living in constant terror of becoming homeless, sleeping in their car and washing their children with bottled water.

    “We saw a lot of fear, a lot of desperation,” said Rhea Laughlin, an organizer with First 5 Contra Costa, a county initiative that focuses on early childhood. But, she said, she also saw people summon the courage “to go before council, to rally, to march, to speak to the press and be exposed in a way that I think tenants were too afraid to do before, but now really felt they had little to lose.”

    Teresa Farias, 36, said she was terrified to speak in public but she was even more afraid that she, her husband and their three children, ages 3 to 14, would have to leave their home. When the family received a $361 rent increase notice in May, she called the East County Regional Group, a parent advocacy organization supported by First 5. They told her to start knocking on doors and talk to her neighbors.

    “I really don’t know where my strength came from, to be able to speak in public, to be able to speak in front of the City Council … to ask them to help us with this issue,” she said in Spanish outside her home at the Casa Blanca apartments.

    California’s tenant protection law limits rent increases to a maximum 10% a year. But many types of housing are exempt, including low-income complexes funded by government tax credits and increasingly owned by corporations, limited liability companies or limited partnerships.

    The tenants who flooded City Council meetings drew largely from four affordable-housing complexes, including sister properties Delta Pines and Casa Blanca, where an estimated 150 households received large rent increases in May. The properties are linked to Shaoul Levy, founder of real estate investment firm Levy Affiliated in Santa Monica.

    The rent increases never took effect, rescinded by the landlord as the City Council moved toward approving rent stabilization. Levy did not respond to emails seeking comment.

    Council member Michael Barbanica, who owns a real estate and property management company, called the rent hikes outrageous, but said the city could have worked with the district attorney’s office to prosecute price-gouging corporate landlords.

    Instead, the rent cap penalizes all local landlords, some of whom are now planning to sell, he said.

    “They’re not the ones doing 30-40-50% increases,” Barbanica said, “yet they were caught in the crossfire.”

    But, Carlson said, the city needs to pass even more tenant protections. The apartment complex is infested with roaches and her neighbors are too scared to speak up, she said.

    Her apartment has flooded at least seven times in the eight years she’s lived there, she said, flipping through cellphone photos of her toilet and bathtub filled with dark yellow-brown water. In October 2020, she slipped from water pouring down from the upstairs apartment and dislocated her hip.

    She has never been compensated, including all the gifts lost when the apartment flooded with water on Christmas Eve 2017. Two months later, in February 2018, feces and urine bubbled from the tub and toilets.

    “We got two five-gallon buckets and a bag of plastic bags brought to us and we had to (urinate and defecate) in those buckets for five days because the toilets were blown off the floor,” Carlson said.

    The toilets still gurgle, indicating blockage. That’s when she shuts off the water and waits for plumbers to clear the backup.

    Tenant organizer Devin Williams grew up in Antioch after his parents moved out of San Francisco in 2003, part of a migration of Black residents leaving city centers for cheaper homes in safer suburbs. The 32-year-old is devastated that the same opportunity is not available to tenants like Carlson now.

    “People have a responsibility to make sure people have habitable living conditions,” he said. “And their lives are just being exploited because people want to make money.”

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  • Climate activists block private jets at Amsterdam airport

    Climate activists block private jets at Amsterdam airport

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    EDE, Netherlands — Hundreds of climate protesters blocked private jets from leaving Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Saturday in a demonstration on the eve of the COP27 U.N. climate meeting in Egypt.

    Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion protesters sat around private jets to prevent them leaving and others rode bicycles around the planes.

    Dewi Zloch of Greenpeace Netherlands said the activists want “fewer flights, more trains and a ban on unnecessary short-haul flights and private jets.”

    Military police said they arrested a number of protesters for being on the airport’s grounds without authorization.

    Responding Friday to an open letter from Greenpeace, Schiphol’s new CEO Ruud Sondag said the airport is targeting “emissions-free airports by 2030 and net climate-neutral aviation by 2050. And we have an duty to lead the way in that,” but conceded it needed to happen faster.

    More than 120 world leaders will attend this year’s U.N. climate talks at the Red Sea coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh starting Sunday.

    Thorny issues up for discussion at the Nov. 6-18 talks, including further cutting greenhouse gas emissions and boosting financial aid for poor countries struggling with the impacts of climate change.

    ———

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • EXPLAINER: Traveling to, around Qatar during FIFA World Cup

    EXPLAINER: Traveling to, around Qatar during FIFA World Cup

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Some 1.2 million people are expected to pour into Qatar during the upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup that begins this month.

    With fans coming from all over the world, reaching Qatar on the Arabian Peninsula, as well as getting around once there, remains a concern. Estimates suggest that as many as half a million people may be in the country each day during the height of the competition.

    However, fans have a variety of transportation options to choose from ahead of the tournament.

    Here’s a look at how to get there, where to go and how to move around.

    FLYING TO QATAR

    Qatar has become a hub for East-West travel, thanks to its long-haul carrier Qatar Airways. Already, the airline is offering tailored flight, hotel and ticket options for its customers. Dubai in the United Arab Emirates is gearing up to have its low-cost carrier FlyDubai run as many as 30 trips a day into Doha to allow spectators to watch a match and then shuttle back to hotels in the emirate. Those flying in will land at Doha’s Hamad International Airport, a massive airport that Qatar built for $15 billion and opened in 2014. The airport has plans to expand further in 2022 to handle 58 million passengers a year. Passengers will clear immigration and customs checks before heading out into the city. Note that during the tournament, Qatar won’t be issuing normal visas and those coming for the matches must have a Qatari-issued Hayya Card. The card verifies you have housing for the time you’re in the country or will travel in just for the match you’re watching. The Hayya Card also is required for entry into stadiums. Also keep in mind that Qatar has only one land border, with Saudi Arabia, if you’re thinking about driving.

    CORONAVIRUS CONSIDERATIONS

    Qatar has had strict rules regarding travel and the coronavirus since the pandemic began, but they were loosened as of Nov. 1. Qatar has dropped a requirement for PCR testing prior to your trip to the country, and said it’s no longer required to download its Ehteraz contact-tracing app.

    HOW TO GET AROUND QATAR

    As you walk out of the airport, you have several options on how to get around. Qatar’s state-owned Mowasalat transportation company offers taxi cabs at curbside. Major ride-hailing apps like Uber also work in Qatar. Mowasalat runs a bus service at the airport, too. Doha also has a recently built metro service, which will take you from the airport to most areas in the capital. The metro also connects to a tram now running in Lusail. You can rent a car at the airport, though officials are urging those coming to the tournament to take mass transit. On match day, public transport will be free to those holding tickets. Keep in mind that Qatar’s riyal currency trades at $1 to 3.64 riyals. There are 100 dirhams in each riyal.

    WHAT TO SEE WHILE IN QATAR

    Outside of the tournament, Doha has several cultural sites to visit. Qatar’s Museum of Islamic Art offers both interesting views inside its galleries and a view outside of the city’s skyline. Nearby is Doha’s Souq Waqif, which has traditional storefronts and gifts for sale — including even a falcon section. The National Museum of Qatar, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, is a take on the desert rose. Qatar’s National Library also is renowned for its design. Doha’s Mall of Qatar has some 500,000 square meters (5.3 million square feet) for shopping. There are also beachfront resorts and tour companies offer trips into Qatar’s desert expanses as well.

    ___

    Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

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  • Hundreds of elephants, zebras die as Kenya weathers drought

    Hundreds of elephants, zebras die as Kenya weathers drought

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    NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Hundreds of animals, including elephants and endangered Grevy’s zebras, have died in Kenyan wildlife preserves during East Africa’s worst drought in decades, according to a report released Friday.

    The Kenya Wildlife Service and other bodies counted the deaths of 205 elephants, 512 wildebeests, 381 common zebras, 51 buffalos, 49 Grevy’s zebras and 12 giraffes in the past nine months, the report states.

    Parts of Kenya have experienced four consecutive seasons with inadequate rain in the past two years, with dire effects for people and animals, including livestock.

    The worst-affected ecosystems are home to some of Kenya’s most-visited national parks, reserves and conservancies, including the Amboseli, Tsavo and Laikipia-Samburu areas, according to the report’s authors.

    They called for an urgent aerial census of wildlife in Amboseli to get a broader view of the drought’s impact on wild animals there.

    Other experts have recommended the immediate provision of water and salt licks in impacted regions. Elephants, for example, drink 240 liters (63.40 gallons) of water per day, according to Jim Justus Nyamu, executive director of the Elephant Neighbors Center.

    For Grevy’s zebras, experts urge enhancing provisions of hay.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the climate and environment: https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • Tourists on Peru riverboat freed after pollution protest

    Tourists on Peru riverboat freed after pollution protest

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    LIMA, Peru (AP) — An Indigenous leader in Peru’s Amazon region said Friday that his community had released 98 riverboat passengers — 23 of them foreign tourists — who had been detained overnight as a protest to demand government attention to complaints of oil pollution.

    Wadson Trujillo said the passengers, including citizens of Germany, Great Britain, Spain and France as well as Peru, set off along the Maranon River at 1:45 p.m. local time aboard the vessel named Eduardo 11, which had been held since the day before by residents of Cuninico. The passengers were en route from Yurimaguas to Iquitos, the main city in Peru’s Amazon region.

    But he said the people of Cuninico would continue protests — and blocking the passage of boats — until the government gives them concrete help.

    “We have seen ourselves obliged to take this measure to summon the attention of a state that has not paid attention to us for eight years,” he told The Associated Press by telephone.

    He asked the government of President Pedro Castillo to declare an emergency in the area to deal with the effects of oil pollution.

    Trujillo said oil spills in 2014 and again in September this year “have caused much damage” to people who depend on fish from the river as a significant part of their diet.

    “The people have had to drink water and eat fish contaminated with petroleum without any government being concerned,” he said.

    He said the spills had affected not only the roughly 1,000 inhabitants of his township but nearly 80 other communities, many of which lack running water, electricity or telephone service.

    Peru’s Health Ministry took blood samples in the region in 2016 and found that about half the tests from Cuninico showed levels of mercury and cadmium above levels recommended by the World Health Organization.

    “The children have those poisons in their blood. The people suffer from stomach problems — that is every day,” Trujillo said.

    Prime Minister Aníbal Torres said in response to Indigenous demands that the “evils of 200 years of republican life cannot be resolved in a day, in a few months or in a few years.”

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  • Climate protesters splatter Van Gogh in Rome with pea soup

    Climate protesters splatter Van Gogh in Rome with pea soup

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    ROME (AP) — Environmental activists tossed pea soup on a Vincent van Gogh painting Friday in Rome to protest carbon use and natural gas extraction, but caused no damage to the glass-covered painting.

    Security intervened immediately and removed the protesters kneeling in front of “The Sower” at the Palazzo Bonaparte to deliver a manifesto. Protesters from the same group, the Last Generation, earlier blocked a highway near Rome.

    The painting belongs to the Kroller-Muller Museum in the Netherlands and was on loan for a show in Italy’s capital featuring works by Van Gogh. Officials said the 1888 painting was undamaged.

    Italy’s new culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, condemned the protest.

    “Attacking art is an ignoble act that must be firmly condemned,” he said. “Culture, which is the basis of our identity, must be defended and protected, and certainly not used as a megaphone for other forms of protest.”

    Climate activists have staged similar protests have taken place at museums in Britain, Germany and elsewhere in Italy, targeting works by Van Gogh, Botticelli and Picasso.

    The stunt backfired for some onlookers.

    “It totally defeats the purpose.″ Hans Bergetoft, a tourist from Stockholm, said. “I am really for the cause in itself, but not the action. Not the action that they took. Not at all.”

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the climate and environment: https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • How to Boost Productivity Using Nutritional Psychology

    How to Boost Productivity Using Nutritional Psychology

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In this video, Ben Angel shares how nutritional psychology can help supercharge productivity.

    Are you unstoppable? Take the FREE quiz now to find out! (only available for a limited time) And be sure to grab a copy of Ben’s award-winning book, Unstoppable, which has been read by more than 70,000 people worldwide.

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    Ben Angel

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  • Devi the elephant, 45, euthanized at San Diego Zoo

    Devi the elephant, 45, euthanized at San Diego Zoo

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    SAN DIEGO — A 45-year-old female Asian elephant was euthanized because of her deteriorating health from age-related problems, the San Diego Zoo announced Friday.

    Devi had been undergoing therapy but her mobility had declined and wildlife care specialists “made the difficult decision” on Thursday to euthanize her, the zoo said in a Facebook posting.

    “The San Diego Zoo family is heartbroken,” the zoo said.

    Devi arrived at the zoo in 1977 from an elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka.

    “She inspired guests from all over the world to understand the importance of elephant conservation and leaves behind a remarkable legacy as an ambassador for her species,” the zoo said.

    Devi was the second oldest of five elephants at the zoo. Mary, a 58-year-old Asian elephant, and African elephant Shaba, 42, lived with her at the Elephant Care Center.

    After Devi died, the two were allowed to view her body and “make their goodbyes,” the zoo said.

    Elephants in the wild are highly social animals and scientists say some have been observed performing behaviors that in humans might indicate mourning for a dead acquaintance.

    The Asian elephant can live for decades in the wild and in captivity. It is considered endangered because of poaching and habitat loss, with an estimated wild population of about 50,000.

    The San Diego Zoo has euthanized two other elephants for health reasons in the past six years. Ranchipur, a 50-year-old Asian male, died in 2016 and Tembo, a 48-year-old African female, was euthanized in 2019.

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  • Argentina adds another exchange rate — for tourists only

    Argentina adds another exchange rate — for tourists only

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    BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — In recent years, a moment often came when a visitor to Argentina suddenly grasped they could have gotten a lot more bang for their bucks if only they had brought cash to buy pesos on the unofficial market.

    A dollar sometimes would buy twice as many pesos in informal cash trading as the amount in pesos it would get in purchases using a credit or debit card covered by the official exchange rate.

    “You can almost hear the blood drain out of their voice when they realize this,” said Jed Rothenberg, owner of a travel agency that specializes in trips to Argentina.

    That should, at least in theory, be a thing of the past as of Friday. The government has implemented a new regulation allowing visitors using credit and debit cards to get more pesos than the official rate gives.

    On Friday, one dollar was officially worth 157 Argentine pesos. But in the unofficial market, commonly referred to as the “blue dollar,” it could be worth as much as 285 pesos. And in the system that will now be used by credit card operators it was at 292.

    The informal foreign currency traders became more ubiquitous after strict capital controls were put in place in 2019 in an effort to protect the local currency from a sharp devaluation amid the country’s high inflation.

    The government hopes the new rule for credit and debit cards will discourage all-cash transactions that leave cash-laden tourists more vulnerable to robbers — and also often deprive the government of sales taxes that are frequently ignored if there is no electronic trail.

    Rothenberg sought for years to explain Argentina’s different exchange rates and the difficulties that tourists faced in using credit and debit cards. He wasn’t always successful.

    “The vast majority of people are just confused: ‘You mean there’s more than one exchange rate and that one of these can be as much as a double- or even triple-digit difference?’,” Rothenberg said.

    The new rule won’t do much to reduce confusing complexities. It adds yet another exchange rate to the more than 10 that already exist in Argentina — a system that makes it impossible to say simply what a peso is worth.

    The government also imposes different taxes on converting foreign currency depending on what it will be used for, leading to rates that have colloquial names like the “Qatar dollar” for travelers (a reference to the World Cup), the “Netflix dollar” for streaming services and the “Coldplay dollar” to book foreign artists to play in the country.

    The reason why no one can really answer how much a peso is worth is because “it’s worth something different for each person,” said Martín Kalos, an economist who is a director at Epyca Consultores, a local consultancy.

    “The government has been segmenting the market. There is no one value, there are multiple prices depending on who you are or what operation you want to do,” he said.

    The government’s goal is to have a stronger peso to pay for the country’s imports in hopes of keeping prices rises from worsening. The economy registered an annual inflation rate of 83% in September.

    Fernández’s administration “is implementing palliative measures, or patches, because it has elections a year from now” and any efforts to correct these distortions would likely cause economic pain that would be costly at the ballot box, Kalos said.

    Argentina has gone through so many financial crises in recent decades that its citizens are distrustful of their currency, so those who earn enough to save usually do so in dollars or euros.

    Even economically savvy Argentines are often confused.

    Anyone who has not received subsidies from the state or who operates in certain financial markets can buy as much as $200 a month but must add an additional 65% tax to the official exchange rate.

    Argentines who pay for foreign currency purchases on their credit cards pay a surplus of 75% over the official rate. But that is as long as they spend less than $300. If they spend more than that a month, the surplus increases to 100%.

    Argentines can also buy dollars through the financial markets via operations through bonds or stocks but pay a peso price similar to that in the informal market. That is the system made available to credit card processing companies Friday.

    Experts said they have to see how the new system for visitors is implemented before knowing whether it will be succesful.

    But if implemented well, Rothenberg said the change could be a boon for tourists.

    “They’re just using their credit card, they don’t care about the details,” he said. “If they actually make this work, Argentina could be one of the top tourist destinations within the next couple of years, especially with how expensive the U.S. and Europe are right now.”

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  • Swimmer attacked by shark in waters near San Diego

    Swimmer attacked by shark in waters near San Diego

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    SAN DIEGO — A shark attacked a woman Friday in the Pacific waters north of San Diego, officials said.

    The woman was treated at a hospital for puncture and laceration wounds to her upper right thigh, according to Jon Edelbrock, lifeguard chief for the city of Del Mar. She received stitches and is recovering.

    The shark may have been a juvenile white shark, Edelbrock said, but officials are waiting for scientists to confirm that. Juvenile white sharks often swim in the waters off Del Mar’s shoreline.

    A lifeguard spotted the woman and her friend just after 10 a.m. as they were heading back to shore following a mile-plus (kilometer-plus) swim, Edelbrock said. Their strokes changed and the friend was waving his arms for help in the water a few hundred yards (meters) from the beach, but outside the surf zone.

    Lifeguards, who did not spot the shark, helped the pair back to shore, he said.

    The beach is now closed for at least 48 hours under the city’s shark bite protocol.

    “She had a diligent swim buddy,” Edelbrock said. “They both maintained their composure quite well.”

    Del Mar is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of downtown San Diego.

    An 8-foot-long (2.44-meter-long) juvenile white shark washed up dead Sunday on the shores of Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve and State Beach, according to KSWB-TV. That’s nearly 3 miles (4.83 kilometers) south of Friday’s attack.

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  • 5 Ways to Clear Your Mind and Be Your Most Productive Self

    5 Ways to Clear Your Mind and Be Your Most Productive Self

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    You can be in flow one day and out the next. While earning my doctorate, I worked full-time while running a business and engaging in a dysfunctional marriage. I had committed to doing everything I had set out to do with no consideration for the impact of the pressures on my life.

    But one day, I found myself unfocused and uninterested in completing my work. I sat at the computer for a while, but nothing came. I couldn’t produce. Does this sound familiar? If it does, you have experienced a mental block.

    Related: 7 Unexpected Ways to Get Around Mental Blocks

    Spotting the signs

    I was in the middle of my doctoral program with tons of papers to write, but I was stuck. It lasted for days. Although that was the first time I had experienced a mental block, it wasn’t the last.

    I realized I was prone to mental blocks when I was engaging in long periods of mental stimulation, experiencing prolonged stress, and in a highly creative period. Here are some signs to watch out for in yourself:

    • Feeling frustrated and overwhelmed
    • Trying to push through to finish a task but feel stuck
    • Difficulty completing any tasks that required me to think, strategize or create
    • Trouble producing anything of high quality
    • Finding it hard to describe how you’re feeling and what you’re experiencing

    One of the hardest things about experiencing a mental block is that it cannot be seen, which makes it hard to identify. Furthermore, a mental block can happen to anyone, varies in length and can happen at the most inconvenient time. They can range from acute to severe.

    Related: 7 Mental Blocks Preventing Your Success

    Contributing factors

    Several factors can contribute to mental blocks. Some of them include:

    1. Mental exhaustion: As in my case, I was overworking my brain muscles all day and night by constantly engaging in creative activities. I was experiencing mental fatigue from excess decision-making. My life was structured so that all decisions had to pass through me and couldn’t be delegated to someone else. My brain was exhausted.
    2. Lack of sleep: With 24 hours in a day, eight were dedicated to my full-time job, six were going to my business, two were for traveling back and forth and three were used for cooking, bathing and spending time with my family and friends. On average, this schedule left me with five hours each day to sleep. The recommended amount of sleep per day is six to eight hours. I was not giving my brain enough time to rest to function correctly.
    3. Environmental disorganization: Your workspace should reflect the clarity you want when working. When my environment is in disarray, I have the most difficulty focusing on a task. When I earned my doctorate, I was in a dysfunctional marriage. My ex-husband was verbally abusive and battling drug addiction. He would often throw fits and destroy the apartment. On days I would arrive home, items would be all over the floor and out of place. I would need to leave home to think clearly. This was one of the contributing factors to my staying so busy and out of the house as much as possible.
    4. Impostor syndrome: I doubted my experience and abilities at the highest level while earning my doctorate. It felt like I was in an in-between space where I had years of professional experience, but I didn’t feel like an expert in my field. This led me to question my abilities and hesitate before writing a paper. I wanted everything I submitted to be perfect and I feared judgment. So instead of creating, I would find myself stuck on validating myself.

    Related: 6 Powerful Ways to Get Out of a Mental Slump

    Overcoming a mental block

    Once you can identify the root cause of your mental blocks, that is half the battle. The next half consists of taking some actions to help overcome it so you can accomplish your goals. Here are a few things to try:

    1. Turn up your physical activity: This is my go-to anecdote. We are full of energy, and mental blocks are created when that energy becomes stagnant. Engaging in regular physical activity helps prevent and remove blocks that occur. Physically, exercise pumps blood to the brain, which can help us think more clearly.
    2. Grab a coloring book and start coloring: Coloring is relaxing and allows you to get your creative juices flowing without using much brain power. It can help your brain and body relax to improve brain functioning. When coloring, various parts of our brain’s cerebral hemispheres are activated.
    3. Schedule your sleep: Putting your sleep on your schedule helps to regulate the amount you get. By getting more sleep, your brain has time to relax.
    4. Meditate daily: Meditation is a powerful tool that can help us remove distractions and negative thoughts. It helps us to get in touch with our subconscious mind and release the thoughts holding us back. It also produces peace within us, which helps us gain clarity in any situation.
    5. Tap into music: Music can serve as a form of therapy to help us process emotions and act as a calming agent. Listening to music also has incredibly positive effects on our brains.

    The most important thing to remember when feeling stuck is that stepping away from what you are working on is always an option. Take some time to relax and shift your focus. After all, continuing to work will only frustrate you, which is never helpful. Instead, take the time to try some of the suggestions above.

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  • US jails rife with violence, abuse and overcrowding

    US jails rife with violence, abuse and overcrowding

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    In California, lawyers accused staff at the Los Angeles County jail of chaining mentally ill detainees to chairs for days at a time. In West Virginia, people held in the Southern Regional Jail sued the state, saying they found urine and semen in their food. In Missouri, detainees in the St. Louis jail staged multiple uprisings last year, while in Texas, a guard at Houston’s overcrowded Harris County Jail said she and her coworkers had started carrying knives to work for fear that they wouldn’t have backup if violence broke out.

    And while the infamous Rikers Island jail complex in New York City has been the focus of media coverage for its surging number of deaths, rural and urban lockups from Tennessee to Washington to Georgia are not faring much better.

    In other words, America’s jails are a mess.

    “It’s hard to believe, but it seems jails are even more wretched than usual these last few months,” said David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project. “Having worked in this field for 30 years, I don’t remember any other time when there seem to be so many large jails in a state of complete meltdown.”

    Several lockups denied claims about deteriorating conditions or did not respond to requests for comment. A few, including Rikers, acknowledged problems such as infrastructure issues, detainee deaths and high staff attrition.

    “We are working hard to stem the rippling effect of years of mismanagement and neglect within our city’s jails,” a spokesperson for the New York City Department of Correction, which runs Rikers, said in a statement. “Turning our jails around requires a collaborative effort, transparency and time.”

    Unlike prisons, most jails are funded and managed locally, so the problems they face can vary widely from one county to the next. While there’s crumbling infrastructure in Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail, there’s been murky brown drinking water in Seattle’s King County Jail and overcrowding in Houston because of a backlog in the court system.

    But more than a dozen employees, detainees and experts who spoke with The Marshall Project and The Associated Press highlighted two problems they’ve seen at jails across the country: too many people incarcerated, and not enough guards.

    “Our jail facilities are at capacity,” said David Cuevas, president of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies’ union. “It is truly not safe.”

    The twin issues of overcrowding and understaffing have plagued jails across the country for years, and even before the pandemic many facilities were in disarray. Yet in the months after COVID-19 hit, the number of people in local lockups plummeted. People stayed home and committed fewer crimes. Police did not make as many arrests. Courts reduced bail. And jails let more people go home early. Nationally, the number of people in jail decreased by about 25% by the summer of 2020, according to data compiled by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

    But as concern about the virus faded, so did many of the measures designed to combat it — and soon jail populations began to rise. By the summer of 2022, many lockups held more people than they had in years, or became so overcrowded that detainees were forced to sleep on floors, in underground tunnels or in common areas without toilets.

    “Everyone is on edge because it is crowded,” one man detained in Los Angeles wrote in a sworn declaration filed as part of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. “The place smells of urine and excrement because some toilets don’t work, and people who are chained to chairs sometimes pee on the floor because the deputies won’t unchain them.”

    Celia Banos, whose son was one of the people chained to a bench for several days, told The Marshall Project that she was shocked to learn how little the jail had done to take care of him.

    “His condition has deteriorated in there,” Banos said. Though her son — who has schizophrenia — has been incarcerated before, she said this time the jail seemed to be getting worse.

    Some jails found that they still needed to use isolated cells to quarantine potentially sick prisoners. A jail official in Houston said that meant cells that once held two or three people might only be able to hold one, and detainees with a record of violence couldn’t be separated from the general population as easily.

    But even as the number of detainees increased, the number of guards did not. Just like state prisons, many local lockups saw a rise in officer vacancies — sometimes even at facilities that appeared fully staffed on paper. The City, a nonprofit news outlet in New York, reported last year that more than 1,000 Rikers Island guards were calling out sick every day due to a frequently abused policy allowing unlimited sick leave.

    “The things that led to the Great Resignation were happening in jails, too: It was a depressing time, and lots of people were getting sick,” Vincent Schiraldi, a former New York City jail commissioner, said in an interview.

    The guards’ union has disputed that members overuse sick leave, saying they are legitimately absent, often due to on-the-job injuries and exhaustion. In October, the jail said it still had as many as 800 employees out at a time.

    With fewer officers, those who remain are often forced to work longer hours, including double, triple and even quadruple shifts. Guards in Cleveland said they didn’t have time to eat, while some jail workers in Houston reported urinating in bags when they couldn’t find someone to replace them at their posts.

    Having fewer jail employees can also make life worse for detainees because there are fewer workers to let them out of their cells, take them to court, teach their educational programs or tend to their most basic needs.

    In Houston, a man in one of the jail’s isolation units said violence sometimes broke out after guards didn’t let them out to shower for days at a time, while in Philadelphia — at a lockup with a 36% staff vacancy rate — incarcerated people said they couldn’t always get meals or toilet paper. (A jail spokesman “categorically denied” that allegation.) In Ohio, local media reported that guards at Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County Jail have taken to locking people in their cells 23 hours a day because there aren’t enough staff.

    And in one extreme example, a man detained at the Oklahoma County jail in Oklahoma City is accused of raping a handcuffed woman after guards at the understaffed facility left them unsupervised during booking. A detention officer at the troubled facility, which the county took over from the sheriff two years ago, eventually intervened, and the man was later charged with first-degree rape. A jail official said that no disciplinary measures against staff have been announced, but the matter is still under investigation.

    According to Andrea Armstrong, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans who studies deaths in jails and prisons, staffing problems are particularly dangerous when it comes to medical care.

    “We are seeing increased mortality in jails, and they are the types of deaths that could have been avoided if the person had better access to emergency care,” she said.

    In February, a man at Rikers Island choked on an orange and died after staff failed to intervene in time. He was one of eighteen people who have died in the city’s jails this year. Two months later, a detainee at the jail in Anoka County, Minnesota, died in his cell after the guards could not find any medical staff on duty to save him. In Houston, the family of a man who caught COVID-19 and died alone in his cell last year sued the jail. According to the family’s lawyer, U.A. Lewis, none of the staff noticed the man was dead until officers came to get him for a visit.

    Despite the consensus among experts that conditions are deteriorating in many lockups, there’s far less agreement on solutions. While jails officials said they needed basic infrastructure improvements and more staff, some prisoner advocates point out that more lenient bail policies could help ensure fewer people stay behind bars when they don’t have money to pay for their freedom.

    In the meantime, researchers say they need better information from the jails to be able to measure the scope of the problem.

    “There’s so little data out there,” said Michele Deitch, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies jails and prisons. “We literally do not have the means to assess the safety or dangerousness of a facility in any comparative way.”

    Some of the starkest examples of poor conditions — like semen-tainted food or brown drinking water — aren’t easy to measure.

    Even for those things that can be measured — like overcrowding, understaffing or an increase in jail deaths — the available numbers are often years delayed and unreliable. For example, the U.S. Department of Justice said that its annual in-custody death reports undercounted jail deaths by at least 39%. And although the federal government issues an annual report about the number of people in jails nationwide, the most recent data is more than two years old.

    Experts said that lack of data makes it hard to say how much of the growing alarm now actually reflects a change in jail conditions and how much is the result of heightened interest from media and the public.

    But they say that so far, that increased concern has not translated into better conditions.

    “It is horrible in here,” another detainee in Los Angeles wrote in a sworn declaration. “In fact, it is worse than being homeless. Even when I sleep on the streets, there is some room to stretch out. But in here, there are so many people walking by you or sleeping next to you that I’d rather be on the streets.”

    ———

    Blakinger and Rachel Dissell in Cleveland reported for The Marshall Project. Associated Press writers Ken Miller in Oklahoma City and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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  • Build Multi-Generational Wealth With This Mindset

    Build Multi-Generational Wealth With This Mindset

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    “You can’t take it with you” — how often have you heard that?

    It’s an oft-abused phrase employed, usually within the context of a person amassing wealth or assets beyond their needs. What it speaks to is intent, and that’s what building multi-generational wealth is all about: growing your assets to pass them on to future generations.

    We’re not just talking about money and other valuable items, though. There’s far more to it than that.

    Right now, in the West and throughout the world, we’re experiencing deep financial uncertainty. Especially since the crash of 2008, we’ve been on an increasingly fast treadmill of debt.

    Most Millennials and Generation Z in America identified home ownership as the prime marker for success. Increasingly, though, they are being priced out of the housing market altogether. Two-thirds of non-homeowners cited affordability as why they didn’t own their own home.

    There are, of course, several factors that have gone into this situation. It boils down to a total lack of focus on building generational wealth. Now we could lay that at the feet of consumerism; far too much emphasis on instant gratification, not enough on the journey of life and deferred gratification for greater future reward.

    Related: Experts Share Tips on Overcoming Generational Wealth Disparity

    Certainly, that’s true to an extent. We buy on credit now more than ever (I’ll get to why that’s bad…but not why you think, shortly). We seek shortcuts and outcomes rather than journeys and experiences. But as with everything in life: the answer lies in more than one factor.

    Right now, we’re experiencing the perfect storm of destabilizing geopolitics, recessions, war and cultural norms that don’t favor multi-generational wealth.

    We’ve cultivated this sense of wealth being about what you can demonstrate to others. It’s all about “flex” culture (as the kids say). But this belies the true nature of what it means to be wealthy.

    What is wealth?

    I’m not going to say something as predictable or demonstrably untrue as: “wealth has nothing to do with money.” That kind of platitudinal soundbite is also part of the problem. We’re not holding ourselves accountable for what we say publicly. Money is absolutely a component of wealth, there’s no doubt. But it also doesn’t paint the complete picture.

    A “wealth” of something simply means that you have an abundant supply of it. For example, you can have a wealth of knowledge. It comes down to how resourced you are as a person and how valuable you can be as an individual to the broader community.

    We’ve done ourselves a cultural disservice in emphasizing money. Not that this is some kind of anti-capitalist rant! I’m a serial entrepreneur, after all. We do, however, need to steer the conversation towards other forms of wealth to heal the current pain we find ourselves in.

    Related: Health Is Wealth: How to Move Away From Hustle Culture

    For multi-generational wealth, we must take a more holistic approach to life

    Millions of dollars in the bank won’t serve you if you have to sacrifice your mental well-being and time with your family (or a family, for that matter) to achieve it. My vision of multi-generational wealth is not about one generation falling on their proverbial sword to bring it about.

    My approach is about breaking these “molds” into which we constantly try to force ourselves. I want us to ditch the ‘cookie-cutter’ approach altogether and really examine what we have to offer future generations beyond just accrued capital.

    Related: Successful Entrepreneurs Don’t Follow Mainstream Money Advice, And You Shouldn’t Either

    Let’s start with money

    Thanks to inflation, the money that you leave behind for your kids will be eroded by the sands of time anyway.

    Our education systems throughout the west offer pitifully little education when it comes to money management. We need to start teaching our kids how to handle money properly if we want to build generational wealth.

    That starts with understanding how to use debt properly!

    We’re used to buying things on credit, usually having been fed the ridiculous line about how it frees up your capital to earn money. Given the rates that most retailers and third-party lenders charge, that’s total garbage.

    You find me a savings account or investment portfolio that will give you the level of return that will match or exceed what they’re charging!

    That said: we also need to avoid the trap of thinking that debt is inherently evil. It’s not. It just depends on how you use it.

    Consumer debt (i.e., buying consumables with debt) is a terrible idea because you’re servicing debt on something that is losing value. Hence why you can leverage your capacity to service debt, for example, to become a lender yourself essentially. That’s how a lot of other successful entrepreneurs and I make a lot of money.

    From an entrepreneurial perspective, educating your kids about how debt works is a massive leap toward building generational wealth.

    This means educating yourself — no bad thing. I would encourage you to break the old habits and stigmas around debt for your own sake. Learn to identify the difference between consumer debt and the debt you can leverage.

    The most important advice I can offer to you as an entrepreneur that will help you build multi-generational wealth is to…

    Find your ‘why’!

    “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how” — Friedrich Nietzsche

    This is always the first port of call for anyone I coach in business. It’s the single most important thing to teach your kids if you want them to build on your legacy.

    You must understand what’s driving you and why. That takes serious introspection and hard work. You will need to weed out all the programmings you’ve been fed since you were a kid that is keeping you motivated by the desires of others.

    We think that so much of what drives us comes from us. More often than not, however, we’re being driven by what someone else expects of us. When we don’t confront this proactively, it leads to mid-life crises.

    The stark realization that we have less time left than we’ve had throws into sharp relief all of the things we’ve valued and how little we actually did for ourselves!

    Don’t let that be the legacy you leave.

    Get your head around the life that you want to lead. Be an example to future generations and build your resources (money, knowledge, health, energy, etc…) to be of maximal service.

    Being of service to others ultimately builds true wealth, after all.

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    Daniel Mangena

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  • In NIL era, business is good for college hoops returnees

    In NIL era, business is good for college hoops returnees

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    Armando Bacot didn’t bolt early from North Carolina after a memorable run to the NCAA championship game to chase a professional playing career. Neither did Gonzaga’s Drew Timme, an All-American star of one of the nation’s top programs.

    No, business is already good for men’s and women’s college basketball players able to cash in on their fame now.

    The option to remain in school is more enticing than ever since the NCAA permitted college athletes to profit from use of their name, image and likeness in summer 2021.

    “It definitely is a factor, definitely something that helped,” said Timme, a two-time Associated Press second-team All-American and a preseason pick this year. “If you look across the landscape of not only college basketball, but all college sports, it’s a big reason a lot of people are inclined to come back.”

    That’s particularly true on the women’s side, where NIL deals and chartered travel offer more appeal than rookie salaries and much-debated commercial flights in the WNBA.

    The women’s game has seen stars like Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers – who is sidelined this year by a knee injury but will return in 2023-24 – and Iowa State’s Ashley Joens opt to stick around. Other prominent names like Louisville’s Hailey Van Lith and North Carolina’s Deja Kelly soon face choices; they become draft eligible by turning 22 next year.

    “If you’re an influencer, especially as a student-athlete in college, and that’s your appeal for NIL, you’re going to want to stay in college because that’s how you’re going to make your money,” Van Lith said. “But I think when it comes to people who are going to pursue professional (playing) careers, I don’t know if it’ll make much of a change.”

    Deals have come fast from businesses seeking the most marketable of athletes, many of whom have hired agents to manage those opportunities. College-town businesses have looked for ways to partner with an athletes to tap into local notoriety. National companies have done it with social-media promotions or ads.

    Athletes are given wide latitude provided they provide some type of service in exchange for compensation. While deal terms aren’t public, they’re estimated to be in some cases six figures or more – with some of the most well-known athletes even pushing past million-dollar projections.

    “The difference in college sports, and we’ve seen this time and again, is: do they follow individuals?” said Columbia University lecturer Joe Favorito, a sports and entertainment marketing consultant. “Kind of. But they really follow the school.

    “So there are people investing in Duke or North Carolina or Notre Dame because that’s part of the school. So if you go from St. John’s and transfer to Villanova, does that mean all the brand equity is going to come along with you? Maybe not.”

    Favorito added: “That’s the challenge of college athletics. It’s much more about community and the collective than it is about individuals sometimes.”

    Yet that also explains why there’s value in sticking around to stay tied to the college’s brand, especially in the annual spotlight of March Madness.

    On the women’s side, Bueckers’ partnerships include Gatorade. Van Lith has deals with adidas, Dick’s Sporting Goods and JCPenney – which led to a back-to-school shopping spree for Louisville-area kids over the summer. Kelly’s partnerships include Dunkin’ Donuts and Beats By Dre – even presenting her team with custom headphones from the company – and she modeled a Sports Illustrated-themed swimsuit line for retailer Forever 21.

    “It’s kind of just taking that (NIL) into consideration as far as I definitely do want to play professionally,” Kelly said. “But it’s just seeing what the best option is as far as what’s going to set me up best successfully, financially in that moment. So I guess we’ll talk about it when the time comes.”

    Joens, a preseason AP All-American, returned to Iowa State instead of entering the WNBA draft. While NIL money and chartered flights factored into her decision, the biggest motivator was getting her finishing her graduation requirements this fall.

    “It was a long process and I went back and forth,” she said. “I didn’t think about it much last year because you’re focused on the season. I talked to my family a little more and they said what’s more important to you right now? I knew being able to graduate and have a degree was a big.”

    Dynamics differ on the men’s side with players eligible for the NBA draft at age 19. There’s also the fact that big men who formerly were surefire first-round draft picks have seen their value slide as the pro game evolves to more floor spacing and 3-point shooting.

    Neither Bacot nor Timme were considered first-round prospects. Nor was Kentucky big man Oscar Tsheibwe, last year’s AP national men’s player of the year. All three are back in college and making money from NIL partnerships, notably with Timme turning his handlebar mustache into a deal with Dollar Shave Club.

    And then there’s Bacot. The 6-foot-11 fourth-year center suffered a bad ankle sprain in the Final Four and limped his way through the NCAA title-game loss to Kansas, so he wouldn’t have been healthy enough for NBA pre-draft workouts.

    But NIL mattered, too.

    The preseason AP all-American’s long endorsement list includes local outlets such as having a burger named for him at Town Hall Burger and Beer and helping the local Me Fine organization raise money for families with children suffering a medical crisis.

    Expanding beyond North Carolina, Bacot partnered with Arkansas-based Bad Boy Mowers and Kentucky-based horse thoroughbred and breeding facility Town & Country Farms – which ultimately had him travel to this year’s Kentucky Derby.

    “Because of the success we had at the end of the year and me, just having a pretty big name in college, it allowed me to leverage that and capitalize on those big opportunities,” Bacot said. “It definitely was something that weighed into coming back.”

    And Bacot’s not done. Over the summer, he filmed a role in the upcoming season of Netflix’s “Outer Banks,” a teen adventure series set on the coast of the Carolinas.

    The only problem? His summer practice schedule interfered with filming dates, prompting him to joke that Netflix was “probably pissed at me” and might write him out of the show.

    If he sticks around long enough, he even might get his own IMDB page.

    Not a bad haul for sticking around to play for the preseason No. 1-ranked team.

    “It allowed me to know I have some security and I had a little money, which is better than having no money,” he quipped. “That’s great.”

    ———

    AP Basketball Writer John Marshall in Phoenix contributed to this report.

    ———

    Follow Aaron Beard on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/aaronbeardap

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  • Qualcomm stock plunges to lowest price in more than two years as magnitude of smartphone shortfall shocks Wall Street

    Qualcomm stock plunges to lowest price in more than two years as magnitude of smartphone shortfall shocks Wall Street

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    Wall Street had braced for a bumpy ride as Qualcomm Inc. navigated an oversupplied market for smartphone chips, but the chip maker’s stock still got T-boned Thursday after a disappointing holiday forecast.

    Qualcomm
    QCOM,
    -6.01%
    shares fell as much as 9.4% Thursday morning to an intraday low of $101.93, the lowest price for the company’s shares since July 2020. Investors were reacting to executives saying the company had up to 10 weeks of inventory in the channel, and that its record handset sales would be followed up by, at best, a $2 billion shortfall in the current quarter, compared with the Wall Street consensus at the time.

    “A weak market, and even a potential inventory correction, was likely not entirely unexpected,” Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon wrote, while adding that “the magnitude is probably worse than what some might have had in mind (though it is certainly not confined to Qualcomm, with virtually all handset-exposed players showing similar dynamics).”

    Rasgon cut his price target on the stock to $140 from $165, while pointing out that executive color suggested that Qualcomm would keep Apple Inc.’s
    AAPL,
    -3.63%
    business through at least the next iPhone cycle, an important note as the iPhone maker seeks to start building its own wireless components.

    More than half of the analysts who cover Qualcomm cut their price targets in reaction to the report, according to FactSet tracking. Evercore ISI analyst C.J. Muse cut his target to $120 from $130 while maintaining an in-line rating; he wrote that while Qualcomm set up for a miss, as it did last quarter, the actual read was much worse than expected.

    “While the buyside was clearly set up for a miss, the magnitude for the December Q was clearly a lot worse than expected with revenues/EPS guided 20%/32% below consensus,” Muse said.

    Read: More about Qualcomm earnings

    “Here, management highlighted demand weakness (CY22 handsets now expected down low double-digits% vs. prior down mid-single digits%; largely Android market and includes premium tier) and elevated channel inventory (now 8-10 weeks oversupply) as the key drivers of weakness,” the Evercore analyst noted.

    Of the 32 analysts who cover Qualcomm, 20 have buy-grade ratings and 12 have hold ratings. Of those 32 analysts, 19 cut price targets resulting in an average target price of $153.75, down from a previous $172.71, according to FactSet data.

    Qualcomm stock has declined more than 42% so far this year, in line with a 41.2% decline for the PHLX Semiconductor Index
    SOX,
    -0.65%    ,
    but well past the 21.1% year-to-date decline for the S&P 500 index
    SPX,
    -0.50%    .

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  • A New Coffee Supplement Is Providing Focus and Clarity on Those Difficult Workdays

    A New Coffee Supplement Is Providing Focus and Clarity on Those Difficult Workdays

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    Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

    A whopping 42 percent of small-business owners say they experience burnout relatively early on in their entrepreneurial journey, a 2022 Capital One Business survey says. Staring at a screen for 60 hours or more per week, looking at financial models, and giving approvals to new products and features can wear a person down. Luckily, that’s why For Wellness exists.


    For Wellness

    For Wellness

    When the For Wellness founders discovered the antioxidant benefits of coffee, they realized they could build on it and craft a special powdered creamer. They call it The Good StuffTM. It’s designed to improve focus, metabolism, and hydration and decrease inflammation. It’s especially great for those on treadmill desks for hours a day. With more than 440 reviews and 4.5 stars on average on its website, it’s no wonder why people swear by The Good Stuff.

    Now, of course, not every businessperson is a coffee fiend like the movies might lead you to believe. If that’s the case for you, you can get as much focus (and even more flavor) out of For Wellness’ Superfood Energy Bites, an espresso brownie with a load of wellness benefits covered in dark chocolate flavors. While mixing and frothing The Good Stuff is easy, the energy bites come ready to eat out of the package.

    For Wellness’s products are designed with athletes, entrepreneurs, and all those who hustle day and night in mind. The products are for those who don’t want to stop moving but can’t put their health on the line. Built with MCT oil for metabolism and burning fat; L-theanine for focus, energy, and reducing the caffeine jitters; collagen for skin, hair, and bone health; and Ceylon cinnamon to reduce inflammation, it’s hard to imagine a workday without For Wellness.

    The best part is you don’t have to stress about re-structuring your entire personal budget to try For Wellness. A 30-day supply of The Good StuffTM is only $30 per month when you subscribe, and a 40-pack of Superfood Energy Bites is only $2 per brownie, both available at the official For Wellness shop.

    Prices subject to change.

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    StackCommerce

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